Is It Really Sad?

I have a ritual with one of my cats.  Well, many rituals to be honest, but this one is one of my favorites.  When I come home, Kik (the male kitty, aka buddy, aka my homeboy, aka kikki-poo), likes to be picked up and held.  It’s the first thing I do after walking in the door and setting down my stuff.  I pick up Kik, I hug him and pet him, he purrs.  We snuggle.  It’s awesome.  I happened to mention this to my students, and I described it as a brief moment when I feel happy, whole, and complete.  Just me and my kitty. 

That’s sad, they said. 

Sad?  I think they mean that it is sad that I feel happy, whole, and complete with Kik but not with another person.  They might suspect that my feelings of completeness with Kik reflect a fair share of loneliness and perhaps some lingering mental anguish.  Deere has cats but not another person waiting for him at home.  That must be lonely.  That must be hard.  He must really miss the companionship of a partner...

…that’s sad. 

Except it’s not.  I like being alone.  It is not a fate that has befallen me.  It is a choice.  An active one.   Right at this moment, I do not want a partner with whom I would share my life.  I think that people find it odd that one would choose to be single and alone.  I can’t see why.  I don’t have to share the bed (except with the kitties).  There are no phone calls, check-ins, permissions or absences.  I go where I want.  My money is for me to spend, whether frugally or frivolously.  I don’t share the remote (kitties don’t watch tv.  They stare, but I haven’t made up my mind that they’re actually watching…).  I can indulge my passion for cooking without sharing, though I bring a lot of it into school to share – especially when I bake.  I can also just order a pizza when my awesome cooking idea catches fire or tastes like cat litter.  I control the toilet seat. The list goes on.  There are endless benefits to living alone. 

But I suspect the issue isn’t about relative benefits.  People in relationships have their own lists which are just as good as mine.  It’s about choosing to be without a person to share one’s life.  It is the choice element, maybe, that is hard to understand.  Interestingly, I see my choice to be alone as a privilege.  If I did not find it just as easy to choose otherwise, I wonder if I would feel the same lack of urgency for a relationship.  If it were not a choice, I’m not sure I would enjoy being alone as much as I do.  After all, I do not find it especially hard to meet people and that makes being alone easier, I suppose.  I could always choose otherwise; a relationship could be there if I want it.  (Especially with the ease of online dating in Boston.)

But nope.  I’m alone.  Happily.  It has led me to think, though, why there is a negative value assigned to this choice, and likewise why there is a positive value assigned to choosing a relationship.  I have many ideas, some more farfetched than others.  One in particular appeals to me.  When we identify a spiritual value in our life, a transcendent value, it usually happens in deeply personal and profoundly individual ways.  And we often express the personal dimension of transcendent value through the object of our transcendence: god is the father, we are his children.  Christ is the bridegroom, the church (all of us united in Christ) is the bride.  In short, there is no more powerful statement of transcendent eventuation than that “the two shall become one.”  Unity from out of a prior separation dominates our ideals of transcendence.  When I proceed from this perspective, being alone looks awful.  Being alone becomes existentially weighty and profoundly negative.  It lacks spiritual and transcendental value.  It is a state that lacks something essential and powerful, and from a spiritual perspective, loneliness is something to be overcome, a state to be rectified as part of our spiritual accomplishment.  Loneliness ain’t human. 

Except I’m not lonely.  And I’m not alone.  I just don’t happen to want a particular form of association with a particular sort of person.  I have my kitties.  I have friends.  I have confidantes, acquaintances, lovers, sometime travelers, and deep, kindred souls that are like family to me.  And I have family.  But in the midst of these relations, I do not identify my fulfillment with the need for another, and I do not identify transcendent or spiritual value through another person.  My selfhood is currently enough.  I am sure that at some point, this will change.  When it does, I do not know if I will be happy about it.  And the reason why is that I struggle to see what a relationship offers in the way of transcendence that so many other forms of association would not.  Holding Kik when I get home from work is a joy.  He’s furry and soft and happy.  He purrs, and he looks positively ecstatic just to be held.  He’s not going to pull away and ask what’s for dinner.   He doesn’t care if I’m sweaty or I smell.  We have a wonderful hug and then he wanders off to sleep in my linens or get something to eat.  Awesome. 

But I just don’t see why it’s sad.  Or why I should want a relationship instead of what I currently have.  Also, I suppose I do not understand why romantic relationships should be prized over other forms of association.  What I might have or want in a romantic relationship is spread across a variety of people who occupy very different roles.  Do I need them rolled into one to be happy?  Some I would travel with.  Some I would not.  Some are lovers.  Others are not.  I have people and two non-people with whom to see movies, go to shows, run races, and in general share my life.  I am hard pressed to figure out why I should want one person to play all of those separate roles and to do so as the central person in my life and the thing to be desired over being alone and coming home to hug my kitty.